


Hephaestion's Alexander

by perdiccas



Category: Heroes - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Death Fic, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-27
Updated: 2009-02-27
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:50:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perdiccas/pseuds/perdiccas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke is nothing but another body on the floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hephaestion's Alexander

When it happens, it should be more dramatic. It's just another shot in a deafening round of gunfire and one scream more in the din of dying men. It's an accidental bull's-eye; a nameless man with shaking hands who aims for Sylar and blows Luke's skull half off. It feels like time should slow and their eyes should meet. He should call Sylar's name a final time or make one last flippant quip before he's gone but the mêlée is unceasing; a trigger pulled and Luke is nothing but another body on the floor, taken by surprise and dead before he knows he's hit.

Sylar's shot seven times before he makes it to Luke's side. He doesn't check Luke's pulse or shake his shoulders, wailing desperately for him to wake. With half his brain splattered on the hardwood and eyes already glazed, Luke's fate was sealed as the bullet left the chamber. Sylar's blood can only heal, not resurrect the dead.

Sylar's died many times and he's killed many more times over but never has facing death left him at such standstill. Even with his mother murdered and cooling in his arms, he'd found the strength to gnash his teeth and weep. Now, motionless and silent, Sylar stares at Luke's still-warm corpse while around him men converge, weapons raised and tranquillisers at the ready.

The first wave dies quickly. Sylar flings out telekinesis, long and thin and sharp, pulled taut like piano wire as it slices through the air at head-height to decapitate those who ring around him. Then, he targets the remainder, one by one, listening to the crack of every bone that snaps as he twists their necks until they break. The last one Sylar captures. He's pinned in place with the hunting knives the dead men carry on their belts: two through each wrist and three at each ankle; one impaling either shoulder to keep him hoisted on the wall.

He's not the man who did it, or perhaps he is; Sylar doesn't know and he doesn't care. He's the man who'll suffer. From crotch to crown, Sylar cleaves him clean in two. Sylar's hand doesn't shake and it's anything but merciful. The agonised screams trail off before Sylar's halfway through, the man's innards sliding out in a slippery, wet and steaming pile of offal. Sylar's eyes skim unblinking at the gruesome scene around him and for once there's nothing sweet about revenge. In the corner of his eye, Luke's body is still crumpled ignobly on the floor.

He lifts Luke in his arms, cradling him against his chest, and it seems wrong that Luke should be so delicate in death. Without his smart mouth and the constant shield of wilfulness around him, Sylar sees the things he never took much notice of as they sat beside each other, bickering in the car. Luke's too pale and he's far too thin. Under the layers of clothes he wears, Luke's light and far too easy to carry for a boy of seventeen. Sylar remembers how he would pick at and play with his food, never eating enough for his growing body or to compensate for the calories lost as he used his power.

It isn't right that he should hold Luke so close and Luke should be so quiet.

Thick, sluggish blood seeps through the sleeve of Sylar's shirt and when Sylar puts his body in the car, buckling him up because whatever laws he might have liked to break, Luke always wore his seatbelt, he's left with a dark, damp patch against his bicep. Sylar flicks on the radio because they never were in silence. Music was the only thing that ever shut Luke up and if he plays it loud enough now, Sylar thinks that maybe he can convince himself that when it stops, Luke will speak again. It's fitting somehow that they're so far off the grid, all Sylar can find is static.

With two gentle fingers, he shuts Luke's eyes and leaves a tender kiss upon his forehead. Before he closes the car door, Sylar ruffles Luke's hair.

"You were a good kid, Luke," he says because Luke never heard that while he lived and Sylar knows that deep down it was all Luke ever wanted anyone to say.

His feet are heavy and his chest feels tight. Crossing the street seems to take far longer than it should.

Sylar clears his throat, though there's no one for miles around to hear him speak, and holds a burning ball of energy, flaming between his fingers. Before he flings it at the car, he hesitates. It was never meant to go this way. Not so soon and not by any but his own hand. Luke had pushed him dangerously, prying where no one else would dare. Sylar won't lie to himself that he never thought---_seriously thought_\---about killing him or leaving him behind. But for all that, for all Luke annoyed him and enraged him, teased and tried to trick him, Sylar never did get rid of him, one way or another, and to abandon him now, in death, seems like the worst betrayal.

The car catches light quickly, and from across the street Sylar can feel the heat against his face as the flames begin to billow. The gas tank gets ignited and the whole thing explodes outwards, charred wreckage landing around him as an overhanging tree is set alight. Sylar laughs because Luke would have appreciated the carnage.

As Sylar turns away, letting the fire burn as a beacon to where Luke has fallen, he bounces red microwaves on his palm. He'll find his father and when he does, Sylar will make him pay, not just for Sylar's sins but for Luke's too.


End file.
